Adrien Leroy eBook

Then, without vouchsafing any further information,
she flounced away, leaving Mr. Wilfer staring blankly
after her, and wishing for once that he had stayed
his hand, instead of driving the girl into the miseries
and dangers of the streets.

Little did Wilfer or Miss Lester imagine that Jessica
had found safety and refuge in Adrien Leroy’s
chambers.

CHAPTER VI

Love is the universal epidemic, effectual in all climes
and conditions; there is no inoculation that will
secure exemption from its influence; only given a
warm human heart, and there is the natural susceptibility.

So it is from high to low. The little blind god
takes no count of difference in fortune or rank in
life. Dynasties fall, thrones totter to the ground,
crowns tumble to dust on kingly heads; but love rules
and lives on, immortal, triumphant, unconquerable.

Jessica had never heard of Romeo and Juliet, of Faust
and Marguerite, or King Cophetua and the beggar maid.
All she knew was that she loved, was conscious only
that for a kind word from the lips of the man who had
befriended her, for a glance from those dark eyes;
she would gladly have given up all the other glories
the world could have put before her.

Poor Jessica, how sweet and yet how bitter had been
the awakening in that gilded cabinet. How sweet
to find herself there in reality, and not only in
a dream; how bitter to know that she had no right there
and that she must go!

That splendid golden room, with, all the wonderful
undreamt-of things, was not for her. She looked
down at her wet, dirt-stained dress, at her worn,
ragged shoes, at her cold, red hands, and shuddered.
She had no right there. Should she take advantage
of his goodness to remain and sully the beauty of
his palace—­for to her it seemed little less—­by
her unworthy presence? No, woman-child as she
was, she shrank from the thought; then caught up her
hat and arose, resolute.

“He will think me ungrateful,” she murmured
with half-closed eyes. “He will think—­no
matter, he will forget me before half an hour.
I will go back to Johann and chance the beating.
This is no place for one like me.”

With a little graceful gesture she bent over the mantel
and pressed her lips to the spot where Adrien had
rested his arm; then with noiseless steps she stole
from the room.

The sun was breaking through the morning mist, but
she shivered as its warm rays touched her, and with
a weary sigh turned towards Soho.

It was all over, the little patch of fairy-light in
the dreary darkness of her existence, and as she reminded
herself of this fact she shuddered again.

Looking back, she remembered but little beyond the
days she had passed with Johann and his shrewish wife.
This strange adventure had been the first ray of sunshine
in her poor existence. No wonder that she was
unhappy at parting with it.